Paul Prescod wrote:
> > <rss version="2.0"> [...]
>
> This could be written:
> <rss version="2.0" xmlns="http:../rss"> [...]
>
> It is just a few more characters per document and NO prefixes. It also
> makes the document more self-describing and provides a built-in link to
> the documentation page. What's not to love?
>
> Anybody who is so namespace allergic that they cannot add a single
> "xmlns" attribute to their document is, in my opinion, trying to make
> life difficult for others, not trying to make life easy for themselves.
In addition to writing XML documents, I also write software
that processes those XML documents. That's where the real
namespace pain begins.
That single "xmlns" attribute (er, namespace declaration)
means that the nice simple data model of elements, attributes,
and text turns into a vastly more complicated data model, where
names are <namespace-name,local-name> pairs -- or even worse,
<namespace-name,namespace-prefix,local-name> triplets -- instead
of atomic strings, and you have to keep track of the namespace
environment to serialize or deserialize anything.
That's why I'm allergic to namespaces.
--Joe English
jenglish@flightlab.com